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Retirement from Operatic Composition

Retirement from Operatic Composition

Chapter:

(p.113)
Chapter eleven Retirement from Operatic Composition

Source:

Rossini

Author(s):

Richard Osborne

Publisher:

Oxford University Press

DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195181296.003.0011

In 1829–1830, the likelihood of Gioachino Rossini’s retirement from operatic composition was a widely reported news story; by the end of the decade it was a fact of life, regretted by some, understood by most. To the post-Romantic mind, retirement at the age of 37 suggested creative failure; to more earnest souls, it suggested moral turpitude, a failure of resolve. By the 1930s, neither of these parties set much store by Rossini’s music or knew much about it, which is where they differed from their predecessors. The opera-going public of the late 1820s was almost as exhausted by Rossini’s music as the man who had composed it. For them, the writing of 39 operas in 19 years, several of them masterpieces, few of them outright failures, was seen as a fair return on anyone’s money.

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PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarship.com). (c) Copyright Oxford University Press, 2019. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in OSO for personal use (for details see www.oxfordscholarship.com/page/privacy-policy).date: 25 May 2019